ABSTRACT

The author's new method treats the dream as a spontaneous product of the psyche about which there is no previous assumption except that it somehow makes sense. As to the alleged boldness of the hypothesis that an unconscious psyche exists, author emphasizes that a modest formulation could be imagined. When something vanishes from consciousness it does not dissolve into thin air or cease to exist, it is simply out of sight. The unconscious consists in the first place of a multitude of temporarily eclipsed contents which, as experience shows, continue to influence the conscious processes. The author once had a discussion with one of his colleagues about another doctor. This man was highly regarded as a scientist, but his right hand did not know what his left was doing. Such people are not fit for psychology and, as a matter of fact, do not like it. As Nietzsche says, memory prefers to give way.